- Not even any credit reward for playing this game mode. XP locked to tank, all you get is a tiny bit of free XP

- Long term reward requires playing ~200 games and effect lasts only ~7 days. Sure it is +50% XP and +50% credits... but XP I am pretty much spamming +100% personal reserves anyway, so the +50% is more like +25%. Similarly, for credits I'm spamming +50% reserves so it's more like +33%

- So if I want this unrewarding 200 games to be worth it, I need to play 600 games after getting to level 13. In one week. Not possible.

Helljumper, Helljumper, where you been? Feet first into hell and back again! When I die please bury me deep! Place an MA5 down by my feet! Don't cry for me, don't shed no tear!
Just pack my box with PT gear! Cuz one early morning 'bout zero-five! The ground will rumble, there'll be lightning in the sky!
Don't you worry, don't come undone! It's just my ghost on a PT run!

5000 gold for 14 days of the bonuses mentioned above? I think I'll need to have around 200k gold in the bank to be throwing away like that. I'd rather use the money for an STG or Cda when it goes on 30% sale

Speaking of which, aren't the gold prices for those a tad higher than normal?

because if theres no crew it goes on like normal events its mostley worthless to most players

id rather have a trained commander or gunner from it at least

It goes onto the vehicle. If you check your free exp you'll see you can convert exp from the Revenant. So yes, you're expected to spend gold to convert it all. Personally I would've preferred to have put my own MT-25 crew on there so at least there would be some point to playing the mode, but alas...

I suppose at least there's the small daily increments to credit and exp bonuses.

Helljumper, Helljumper, where you been? Feet first into hell and back again! When I die please bury me deep! Place an MA5 down by my feet! Don't cry for me, don't shed no tear!
Just pack my box with PT gear! Cuz one early morning 'bout zero-five! The ground will rumble, there'll be lightning in the sky!
Don't you worry, don't come undone! It's just my ghost on a PT run!

And yeah, a sluggish tank combined with super-autoaim bots means that you never make any thrilling escapes (which would at least be fun). You pretty much know that you're going to get shot once you see a pack of dormant tanks and the only question is if there's enough allies nearby to win the fight.

Also has anyone else completely failed to ever have a team trigger an objective or whatever those things are called that provide a special boost for the match?

The optimal stage is whatever stage you get as you play 5 battles daily for the 75k credits mission. Even this is probably small returns to people who can earn over 500k per hour.

Personally I think the main thing to grind for is the weekly mission for 15,000 free xp, you earn more free xp in the process and and 15,000 free xp would normally require 300,000 earned xp, or 300 decent games with a premium account, which you can earn by playing around 20-30 games of the halloween event.